Various attempts have hitherto been made to make rapid and low-replenishing processing compatible with the high quality of X-ray images for medical use.
For example, JP-B-1-126645 (the term "JP-B" as used herein means an "examined Japanese patent publication") discloses a technique of providing a crossover cut layer which is mordanted with a dye, between an emulsion layer and a support to make image sharpness compatible with rapid processing.
Further, JP-A-1-172828 (the term "JP-A" as used herein means an "unexamined published Japanese patent application") discloses a technique of using a solid-dispersed decolorization type dye in a crossover cut layer for the compatibility between high image sharpness and rapid processing in which the total development processing time is less than 90 seconds and the crossover light is 10% or less.
Furthermore, JP-A-58-111938 discloses that high absorption caused by a spectral sensitizing dye allowed to be adsorbed by tabular grains high in specific surface area decreases the crossover light, and that the use of a dye low in molecular weight, high in water solubility and good in decolorization as the spectral sensitizing dye enables realization of high image quality and rapid processing.
However, these techniques have not established the compatibility of rapid processing with minimized replenishment and waste liquid of processing solutions, and formation of such high-quality images as do not substantially have the crossover light.
The conventional techniques, in which dyes or coloring matter allowed to be adsorbed by emulsions used in the crossover cut layers are quickly eluted from photographic materials in development-fixing-washing processing, thereby removing the dyes or the coloring matter so as not to remain in the photographic materials to cause no influence of contamination due to the dyes or the coloring matter on the photographic materials after the processing, have the problem that as the replenishment rate and the amount of the waste liquid of the processing solutions decrease, the dyes or the coloring matter is accumulated in the processing solutions themselves, resulting in contamination of the photographic materials, or deposited on rolls or conveying systems of the photographic materials of automatic processors to contaminate the automatic processors, or transferred to the photographic materials to contaminate the photographic materials. In these conventional techniques, the diffusibility of the dyes or the coloring matter comes into question for decolorization. Accordingly, these techniques have a limitation as a matter of course also from the viewpoint of rapid processing.